10 RULES FOR MAKING
GOOD
DESIGN By Timothy Samara
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“To understand the meaning of design is to understand the part form and content play‌ and to realize that design is also
commentary, opinion, a point of view, and social responsibility.
To design
Design is both a
verb and a noun
.
It is the beginning as well as the end, the process and the product of
imagination.�
is much more than simply to assemble,
to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and
-Paul Rand, Design, Form and Chaos
perhaps even to amuse.
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TABLE OF
Table of contents 1. Have a concept (pg. 2-3)
2. Communicate-don’t decorate (pg. 4-5) 3. Speak with one visual voice (pg. 6-7)
4. Use two typeface families maximum. OK, maybe three (pg. 8-9)
TABLE OF
Table of contents
6. Pick colors on purpose (pg. 12-13)
7. If you can do it with less, then do it (pg. 14-15) 8. Negative space is magical—create it, don’t just fill it up (pg. 16-17) 9. Treat the type as image, as though it’s just as important (pg. 18-19)
CONTENTS CONTENTS
5. Use the one–two punch (pg. 10-11)
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10. Squish and separate (pg. 20-21)
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1. HAVE
A
Have a concept
If there’s no message, no story, no idea, no narrative, or no useful experience to be had, it’s not graphic design. It doesn’t matter how amazing the thing is to look at; without a clear message, it’s an empty, although beautiful, shell. That’s about as complicated as this rule can get. Let’s move on.
CONCEPT 6
2013, Henry Hargreaves, New Zealand
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2.
COMMUNICATE
DON’T Communicate don’t decorate
DECORATE Oooh…Neat! But what exactly is it? Somewhat related to Rule No. 1, this rule is about how you support the all important concept. Form carries meaning, no matter how simple or abstract, and form that’s not right for a given message will communicate messages that you don’t intend—including the message that you don’t know how to choose forms that are meaningful for your audience or that you don’t care what’s meaningful for them. It’s all well and good to experiment with shapes and details and cool effects, but if you simply spackle them all over without considering what they mean and how they support or take away from the message, you end up with a jumbled mass of junk that no longer qualifies as design.
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2010, Marian Bantjes, Canada
SPEAK WITH 3.
ONE
Speak with one visual voice Make all of the parts talk to each other…in the same language. Take a look at everything, from the big picture down to the tiniest detail, and ask yourself: “does everything relate harmoniously to everything else?” Good design assumes that the visual language of the piece—it’s internal logic—is resolved to address all it’s parts so that they reinforce, reinstate, and reference each other, not only in shape or weight or placement, but conceptually as well. As soon as one element seems out of place, or just a leftover that hasn’t been given any thought, it disconnects from the others and the message is weakened.
VISUAL VOICE 10
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2000, Dj Stout & Nancy McMillen, texas
USE TWO 4. TYPEFACE FAMILIES Use two typeface families maximum. Ok, maybe three
Choose typefaces for specific purposes. In doing that you’ll need to define what the purposes are, and you’re likely to find that there are only two or three purposes for text in a project. Because a change in type family usually signals a change in meaning or function—restrain yourself! A single type family with a variety of weights and italics should be enough by itself; adding a second is nice for texture, but don’t overdo it. Too many typefaces are distracting and self-conscious and might confuse or tire the viewer.
MAXIMUM. 12
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2001, Janet Froelich, USA
USE 5. THE ONE-TWO Use the one- two punch
PUNCH Focus viewers’ attention on one important thing first, and then lead them through the rest. Once you capture the audience with a big shape, a startling image, a dramatic type treatment, or a daring color, steadily decrease the activity of each less important item in a logical way to help them get through it. This is establishing a “hierarchy”—the order in which you want them to look at the material—and it is essential for accessibility and ease of use. You’re designing the thing to grab the audiences’ attention, to get them the information they need, and to help them remember it afterward. If there’s no clear focus to start, you’ve already lost the battle.
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2001, James Victore, Idaho
PICK
6.
COLORS Pick colors on purpose
ON PURPOSE Don’t just grab some colors from out of the air. Know what the colors will do when you combine them and, more important, what they might mean to the audience. Color carries an abundance of psychological and emotional meaning, and this meaning can vary tremendously between cultural groups and even individuals. Color affects visual hierarchy, the legibility of type, and how people make connections between disparate items—sometimes called color coding—so choose wisely. Never assume that a certain color, or combination of colors ids right for a particular job because of convention either. Blue for financial services, for example, is the standout color cliché of the past 50 years. Chose colors that are right, not those that are expected.
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2000, Dave Peterson & Minda Gralnek, USA
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IF YOU CAN 7.
DO IT If you can do it with less, then do it
This is a riff left over from Modernism, sometimes known as the “less is more” theory. It’s not so much an aesthetic dogma now as it is a bit of common sense: the more stuff jammed into a given space, the harder it is for the average bear to see what they are supposed to be seeing. Plus, it’s a trashy; anybody can load a bunch of stuff into a dull message and pretend it’s a complex work of art, but there’s a big difference between “complicated” and “complex” a state that often comes about with a simple context. True art lies in the harmonic convergence of thoughtfulness and creativity applied to very little. If the concept and the form are truly beautiful, there can be very, very little of it to look at—without sacrificing a rich experience. Think about how much visual garbage gets thrown at someone walking down the street every day, and ask yourself: “Wouldn’t it make sense to delete some of that mush in favor of something sleek, clear and noticeable?” Make more meaning out of what’s there, don’t gunk it up. If the idea is clear without adding, putting more stuff in is just “gilding the lilly;” if the idea isn’t there and it’s still not visually interesting, adding to it is simply trying to make ‘a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”
WITH LESS,
THEN DO IT 18
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2010, MSLK, USA
NEGATIVE 8.
SPACE
IS MAGICAL— CREATE IT, DON’T JUST FILL IT UP Negative space is magical— create it, don’t just fill it up
It’s often said that negative space—sometimes called white space (even though there might not be any white around—is more important than the stuff that’s in it. For the most part, this is true. Space calls attention to content, separates it from unrelated content around it, and gives the eyes a resting place. Negative space is just as much a space that you have to deal with in a composition as positive shapes, whether pictures or type. When you don’t deal with it at all, negative space feels dead and disconnected from the visual material it surrounds. If the space gets filled up, the result is an oppressive presentation that no one will want to deal with. A lack of negative space overwhelms and confuses the audience, which is likely to get turned off.
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2001, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, USA
9. AS IMAGE , AS THOUGH
TREAT THE TYPE Treat the type as image, as though it’s just as important
it’s just as
A sad commentary on typography today is that most of it fails in this regard: it’s either unimaginatively separated from photography in the notorious “headline/picture/body-copy” strategy seen in countless ad campaigns during the past sixty years or insensitively slapped across images in quirky typefaces, under the assumption that if it’s big and on top of the photo, it’s integrated. Time for a reality check! Type is visual material—made up of lines and dots and shapes and textures—that needs to relate compositionally to everything else included in the design, no matter how different they seem to be.
IMPORTANT 22
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2016, The Heads of State, USA
SQUISH 10.
AND Squish and separate
Create contrasts in density and rhythm by pulling some material closer together and pushing other material further apart. Be rhythmic about it. Give the spaces between things a pulse by making some tighter and some looser unless, of course, you’re trying to make something dull, lifeless, and uninteresting. In that case, everything should be about the same size, weight, color and distance from everything else. Nothing kills a great idea like a dull layout that has no tension. “Without contrast,” Paul Rand once said, “you’re dead.”
SEPERATE 24
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2008, Gail Anderson, USA
10 RULES FOR MAKING GOOD DESIGN by TIMOTHY SAMARA
Designed by: Will Howell Numbers and Headers TYPEFACE: Impact, Arial Black Body copy TYPEFACE: Helvetica Medium size 12 IMAGES courtesy of: Henry Hargreaves Marian Bantjes Dj Stout & Nancy McMillen Janet Froelich
James Victore Dave Peterson & Minda Gralnek MSLK Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich The Heads of State Gail Anderson
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10 RULES FOR MAKING
GOOD
DESIGN 28